In Contention

Tag: Lone Scherfig

  • REVIEW: “One Day” (***)

    “I love you, Dexter, I just don’t like you anymore,” a radiantly moist-eyed Anne Hathaway tells a radiantly plastered Jim Sturgess at a crucial emotional juncture in “One Day,” Lone Scherfig’s attractive, involving and curiously unmoving attempt to replicate the cosy, literate-but-not-too-literary British comforts of her 2009 “An Education.”

    Cribbed by screenwriter David Nicholls from his own mega-selling novel — the kind of fast-digesting doorstop that’s been a ubiquitous presence on London public transport for the past two years — the line is one of those reductively heart-on-sleeve sentiments that Richard Curtis sharpened to a blunt point in his 1990s heyday; when Hathaway drops it, you can hear the film straining for its own place in the pop culture quote bank, somewhere between “Is it still raining? I hadn’t noticed” and “I’m just a girl standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her” in the swoon-cringe stakes.

    If the film surrounding that moment seems unlikely to carry it to such relative heights, that’s because it’s at once less appealing and more adventurous than the bulk of the calculated Working Title charmers on which it is modelled. For starters, it’s one of the more neurotically male-minded films ever to be marketed as a lavender-scented chick flick.

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  • INTERVIEW: Patricia Clarkson

    “I’m going to bring back the letter,” a flustered Patricia Clarkson announces as she makes her way to our lunch table, ever-so-slightly rain-mussed but otherwise immaculate in black and cream, a jaunty matching fedora astride her familiar blonde mane. “I’m never late. I blame email for this. I’m only just getting acquainted with it.”

    She is, thanks to a slight communication muddle, late only to a degree most actors wouldn’t apologise for. Together with my lunchmate, Daily Telegraph critic Tim Robey, we’ve nabbed a cosy corner spot at Mayfair’s all-day Italian bistro Cecconi’s, a humming London institution of marble, green velvet upholstery and £40 white truffle starters. (Clarkson is more excited by other things on the menu: later, one eye on the menu, she interrupts her own sentence with the jubilant cry, “Meatballs! With spaghetti sauce!”)

    “This place is fabulous,” she says—that adjective’s first of many appearances in our two-hour conversation—settling into our banquette with a tidy collapse of a sigh. Patricia Clarkson, she does not mind admitting, is exhausted, and not just from her week of jury duty at the London Film Festival, where she presided over the panel that, we’d learn the next day, selected Russia’s “How I Ended This Summer” as best in show. (All she tells us is that she’s “very happy” with the “wonderful” winner they’ve chosen, though she successfully deflects our speculation as to what it might be. “Oh, the Russian film?” she shrugs, when Tim brings it up.)

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  • 2/23 Oscarweb Round-up

    Jeremy Renner• Peter Knegt chats with Best Actor nominee Jeremy Renner. [indieWIRE]

    • Oscar party kits, anyone? With bingo! [Oscars.org]

    • “The Messenger” writers and Oscar nominees Oren Moverman and Alessandro Camon on their process. [MTV Movies Blog]

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  • Calling the longshots

    Sharlto Copley in District 9So this Steve Pond piece, titled “How Oscar Could Surprise — and Scare — Us,” is what we like to call hedging our bets.  It’s a chance to address some bubble matters so that we have something to point to and say, “Look, I toldja!”

    (Is that officially trademarked by Nikki Finke yet?)

    Anyway, I do like the guessing game fun, and Pond touches on a couple of things that I would likely mention if I were to do a similar piece.  One we can all understand is his #10, the potential snub of “Invictus” in the Best Picture category.  It has kind of been in the water for a few weeks now that the film just isn’t as strong as it could be, likely lacking passionate top tier votes.  It is, frankly, in the #10 spot on my list of final predictions.

    I do like Pond’s mention of Sharlto Copley as a potential Best Actor spoiler, but failing to even make the longlist with BAFTA (a group that wasn’t shy on the “District 9” love) makes the actor (who gave the year’s best lead actor performance in my book) the darkest of dark horses.

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  • OFF THE CARPET: The time is nigh

    George Clooney in Up in the AirIn so many words, this is it.  The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences unveils it’s slate of nominees bright and early tomorrow morning, and this being the first year with a 10-film Best Picture field, all eyes will be on the top category to gauge which way the wind blew on this AMPAS experiment.

    Will populist entertainment reap the benefits of an extra five slots or will independent cinema finally get its foot in the door?  That’s been the question all year long.  The answers are around the corner, and less than 24 hours out, they still feel as elusive as ever.

    I learned long ago that to forecast “surprises” is folly.  They’re called surprises for a reason.  All you can do is try to find the pulse on the season and make your judgment calls, and in most cases, that means understanding what the Academy is high on, and when.

    For instance, is “The Messenger” poised to surprise in the supporting actress and original screenplay races, as well as Best Picture?  Or did the discussion stir up a bit late (which it did), too late, perhaps, to register?  The screener showed up earlier than most.  Did members find time in that lull to pop it into the player?

    Meanwhile, how will the BAFTA contingent affect the race?  We see it every year.  Contenders left dangling on the vine get their due from a membership that has considerable AMPAS cross-over.  Just ask Alan Alda.  With that in mind, could Alec Baldwin or Alfred Molina find themselves sliding into an incredibly fluid supporting actor category?

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  • ‘Education,’ ‘Hurt,’ ‘Avatar’ lead BAFTA nominations

    Carey Mulligan and Peter Sarsgaard in An EducationFor once, my predictions weren’t too shoddy … though the field-beating haul I anticipated for “An Education” didn’t quite pan out. Instead, Lone Scherfig’s film ties for the lead with Oscar frontrunners “Avatar” and “The Hurt Locker,” all three films securing eight nominations.

    “An Education” still looks like the one to beat here, though it’s not quite as strong as I might have thought. (I’m especially disappointed that Rosamund Pike fails to show up, despite being one of the BAFTA acting branch’s top five picks.)

    However, the especially robust showing for “The Hurt Locker” (I didn’t see that FX nod coming) suggests it could give the British pic trouble. Both films, meanwhile, scored directing bids, marking the first time BAFTA has nominated two female helmers in the category.

    Of course, “Avatar” also poses a threat, though when it comes to the win, it doesn’t strike me as BAFTA’s cup of tea. It’s worth bearing in mind that Cameron’s last awards behemoth, “Titanic” went 0-for-10 at the 1997 ceremony. (Before you ask, it lost Best Visual Effects to “The Fifth Element.”)

    More discussion, and a full list of nominations, after the cut.

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  • DGA on the way

    J.J. Abrams on the set of Star TrekTomorrow the Directors Guild of America will chime in with its list of nominees for the 2009-2010 film awards season.  Long considered to be the best “predictor” of the Oscar game (as in, the DGA winner typically wins the Oscar for Best Director, and Best Director often matches up with Best Picture), this guild’s shenanigans makes for a heavily anticipated harbinger of the season.

    Then again, maybe not.  In the last few years, names like Christopher Nolan, Sean Penn, Julian Schnabel and Bill Condon have popped up on the list, almost as if the guild was concerned with predicting the Best Picture race as it had done, five-for-five, for four straight years prior.  Those picks reflected the buzz of the early-year hour in each case, but ultimately, the Academy went a different direction with its Best Picture slate.

    That said, “the 10” makes for an entirely different dynamic.  I actually expect (or maybe “hope” is the word) tomorrow’s announcement to inject some intrigue into the proceedings.  I think there will be someone shortlisted who catches a great many off guard.  But who will it be?

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  • 11/4 Oscarweb Round-up

    (from left) Robert De Niro and Drew Barrymore in Everybody's Fine• Gregory Ellwood slams “Everybody’s Fine,” calls last night’s AFI festivities a Miramax wake.  I’m having trouble disagreeing with him. [Awards Campaign]

    • Rebecca Milzoff gets some face time with “An Education” director Lone Scherfig. [Vulture]

    • Jim Carrey’s Scrooge rings in the holiday spirit. [Associated Press]

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  • ‘Fish Tank,’ ‘Moon,’ ‘Education’ lead BIFA noms, female directors rule

    Katie Jarvis in Fish TankYou’ve heard me natter on enough for months about how “Fish Tank” is one of the year’s best films — now you don’t have to just hear it from me anymore.

    Andrea Arnold’s lyrical character study of an unhappy Essex teenager (now being dubbed ‘the British “Precious”‘ by some lazy wags) leads the nominations for the British Independent Film Awards, with mentions in a whopping eight categories, including two for 18 year-old sensation Katie Jarvis.

    Once a very niche Transatlantic equivalent to the Indie Spirits, the BIFA Awards are gaining in profile every year, painting a far more revealing picture of the state of the UK film industry than the Oscar-toadying BAFTAs.

    They’re also naming more contenders who go on to feature heavily in awards season: “Slumdog Millionaire” was the belle of last year’s BIFA ball, while this year’s major crossover nominee promises to be “An Education.”

    (More discussion, and a full list of nominees, after the cut.)

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  • ‘An Education’: more than Mulligan

    Rosamund Pike and Lone Scherfig on the set of An EducationAt this morning’s press screening for “An Education,” which has its UK premiere at the London Film Festival tonight, I was impressed afresh by what a layered, deceptively gentle and generally terrific little picture it is.

    Some have complained that it’s a little too soft, a little too easy — though only its overly pat denouement, for me, merits any such claims — but this is a film that knows its audience, as well as how to sneak more subversive material by them, and deserves credit for its intelligence in doing so.

    I’ll admit that this morning, the thought of it actually winning Best Picture crossed my mind, albeit built on a shaky pile of ifs; either way, it strikes me as a genuine Academy film, and for a change, that isn’t meant as an insult.

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  • THE LONG SHOT: Minority report

    PreciousWhen the Academy Awards roll around in March, it will have been precisely two decades since the unlikely figure of Kim Basinger blasted Academy voters’ conservatism on air at the 1989 ceremony, with specific regard to their sidelining of “Do the Right Thing,” Spike Lee’s groundbreaking study of urban interracial tension.

    “We’ve got five great films here, and they’re great for one reason – they tell the truth,” the star opined before presenting a clip from one of that year’s Best Picture nominees. “But there is one film missing from this list that deserves to be on it because, ironically, it might tell the biggest truth of all.”

    As if in response, later that evening, the Academy handed their top prize to “Driving Miss Daisy,” as quiet and uncontroversial a portrait of the American racial divide as you could ask for. Let it never be said that the Oscars have no sense of irony.

    20 years on, much has changed. (Basinger has become an Oscar-winning actress, for starters. No one saw that coming.) More to the point, the amount of black Oscar winners in acting categories has trebled. And just two years after Basinger’s outburst, the Academy named 23 year-old John Singleton their first black Best Director nominee.

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  • Women on top

    Kathryn BigelowIt’s been a couple of months since I discussed the notion of 2009 being a watershed year for female filmmakers at the Oscars, and it’s a possibility that seems to be gaining traction. Sasha Stone recently responded to a post of mine by toying with the slogan “year of the woman,” while a new post by indieWIRE’s Peter Knegt continues the discussion.

    Like me, Knegt fancies the chances of Lone Scherfig and Jane Campion in the race, but his chief interest at the moment is in Kathryn Bigelow, whose film “The Hurt Locker” he declares “the biggest news to hit this year’s race,” based principally on the unexpected strength of its critical reception:

    Coming off a well-received run in the festival circuit, most expected Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker” would find some good reviews and perhaps even make a bit of money.  But “Locker” didn’t just find good reviews, it found ecstatic ones … And while judging its promising $2.2 million-and-counting – after four weeks and without going over 100 screens – is still premature, “Locker” is certainly exceeding financial expectations thus far.

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  • Finding trends in Oscar’s ten

    Ralph Fiennes in The English PatientOver at MCN, David Poland has offered his first formal Oscar column of the season (can we say “the season” in July?) and he has some strong points to make. Prediction junkies who just jump straight to his top 10 forecast for Best Picture will find some (delete according to taste) interesting/exciting/eccentric choices in the mix — he’s certainly the first pundit I’ve heard suggest that Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story” is a frontrunner, while “Julie & Julia” hasn’t previously entered the discussion much either.

    But the column itself is of more interest, largely because he brings up a key (and I think under-discussed) point about the potential impact of a 10-nominee race: namely, that with such a broad field, it becomes much more difficult to pinpoint voter and industry trends from year to year:

    How will 10 nominees change the dynamic of desperate efforts to spin trend stories? How can it be The Year Of… anything with such inevitable diversity?

    It could, I guess, be The Year of Matt Damon, who has Invictus, The Informer!, the animated Miyazaki film, Ponyo, and maybe even Green Zone coming out. It could be The Year Of Not Bio-Pics, in spite of the Nelson Mandela film from Eastwood, Invictus, and Meryl Streep invoking Julia Child.

    Some will try to make it The Year of The Woman, with Nine leading the way for such hopefuls as Julie & Julia, Bright Star, Precious, An Education, Broken Embraces, the 2 SPC Coco Chanel movies, Amelia, Cheri, and even the female director of The Hurt Locker. And maybe they will have a point… there could be 5 nominations in that group.

    Or not.

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  • Could female directors hit Oscar paydirt this year?

    Jane CampionOnly the greenest of awards-watchers needs reminding of the following statistic: a mere three women have been nominated for Best Director in the 81-year history of the Academy Awards. It’s long been an embarrassing state of affairs — never more so than in the late 80s and early 90s, when in three out of six consecutive years, the Best Picture nominee denied a directing nod happened to be made by a woman.

    Still, the sad truth is that the workings of the industry are such that female filmmakers are rarely entrusted with the kind of prestige studio product that grabs awards attention. (It’s no coincidence that the three past nominees — Lina Wertmuller, Jane Campion and Sofia Coppola — all come from the foreign and/or independent sector.)

    2009, however, offers a considerably rosier outlook. As I was compiling my own early Oscar predictions (which I’ll share with you next week) in the wake of Cannes, it occurred to me that the Academy has an opportunity to double that paltry aforementioned statistic in the space of a single year. More than double, actually: looking down the list of awards possibilities, it is feasible — if still not very likely — that as many as four of this year’s five Best Director slots could be filled by the fairer sex.

    Apparently, I’m not the only one thinking alone these lines: IndieWire’s Peter Knegt considers the possibilities of three ladies in his post-Cannes awards speculation column, going so far as to predict nods for all three (based only on films he’s seen so far). So who are these women (including the one Knegt isn’t considering) with a chance of making Oscar history come January?

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  • ‘Push’ sweeps at Sundance

    It had become quite clear over the past few days that Lee Daniels’ sophomore feature “Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire” was one of the few titles raising pulses at a very quiet Sundance Film Festival. The film, a hard-hitting urban tale of an African-American teenager overcoming merciless parental abuse in 1980’s Harlem, has received breathless critical notices across the board, with Variety declaring it “a diamond – clear, bright, but oh so hard.”

    So hardly anyone is surprised that the film cleaned up at yesterday’s Sundance Awards, nabbing both the Grand Jury and Audience Prizes in the U.S. dramatic competition — only the third film ever to achieve that double. It also received a Special Jury Prize for the performance of Mo’Nique as the protagonist’s monstrously neglectful mother.

    Sundance Awards have a spotty record of indicating future success: looking down the list of previous Grand Jury Prize winners, for every “You Can Count on Me” or “Frozen River” that rides its momentum all the way to Oscar night a whole year later, there’s a “Quinceanera” or “Forty Shades of Blue” that pretty much sinks without trace. “Push” certainly sounds like a tough sell for future awards attention, but if the critical championing continues, it’s hard to predict what might be in store.

    One winner we seem increasingly likely to hear more about as the year progresses is Lone Scherfig’s British charmer “An Education,” which inspired a heated bidding contest between specialty studios, and last night landed the Audience Award in the world dramatic competition, as well as a gong for cinematographer John De Borman. (Check out Todd McCarthy’s unabashed rave for the film here – we haven’t seen too many of those lately.)

    Meanwhile, the jury’s choice in the world dramatic section was Chilean class-themed comedy “The Maid,” while directing and screenwriting honours went to Oliver Hirschbiegel’s “Five Minutes of Heaven,” a study of political conflict in 1970’s Northen Ireland headlined by Liam Neeson. After the disaster that was Hirschbiegel’s first English-language effort, “The Invasion,” it’s nice to see the “Downfall” director getting back on track.

    A full list of the (many) feature awards dished out is below the cut. For more details, check out Variety’s report here.

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  • Mulligan makes her move

    Don’t say I didn’t give you the heads-up on this one. Looking over the Sundance lineup last month, I singled out Lone Scherfig’s “An Education” as a title about which I was particularly excited — not least because it stars Carey Mulligan, a lovely young Brit for whom I’ve been predicting big things for some time.

    Well, once in a blue moon, I’m right.

    “An Education,” a 1960s-set coming-of-age drama penned by Nick Hornby, recently bowed at Sundance, and while the notices for the film itself are warm, the real buzz centers on 23 year-old Mulligan. A star, it appears, is born. Jeff Wells was first out the gate, and it’s fair to say that he’s besotted with both star and film — which he reckons we may still be talking about this time next year:

    The best film of the Sundance Film Festival, a finely tuned and deeply engaging film by regular popcorn-watching standards, an award-calibre drama that will definitely be in contention at the end of the year, and a movie that has launched a genuine movie star in an old-fashioned and yet very new-fashioned sense — 23 year-old Carey Mulligan. I know that special old-soul-mixed-with-youthful-effervescence quality that you see in very few actors and actresses over the years, and trust me, Mulligan has it.

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